The case details LimitNone's meetings starting in March 2007 with Google to build a tool it called "gMove" for moving the e-mail, address books and calendars of corporate customers from Microsoft's Outlook into Gmail.

SAN FRANCISCO
(Reuters) - Google Inc was named on Monday in a trade secrets lawsuit
alleging that the company's business software unit copied a tiny
start-up's tool for moving customers off of Microsoft software onto
Google's.

LimitNone LLC filed a complaint in an Illinois circuit court
alleging that Google at first began promoting the smaller firm's tool
for migrating Microsoft Outlook customers to Gmail, then copied the
idea and went into competition with it.

The lawsuit was brought by the commercial litigation firm of Kelley
Drye & Warren LLP -- by the same team who previously faced off with
Google in a trademark case involving the Silicon Valley company's
highly successful online advertising system.

The latest suit takes aim at the company's fast-growing Google Apps
software application business, which includes Gmail for business users.
Google is seeking to woo customers away from relying on rival Microsoft
software.

The complaint accuses the Web leader of engaging in deceptive
business practices that chill competition. It seeks reimbursement from
Google of actual damages, attorneys' fees and calls on the court to
award punitive damages to LimitNone.

Google was not immediately available to comment.

The case details LimitNone's meetings starting in March 2007 with
Google to build a tool it called "gMove" for moving the e-mail, address
books and calendars of corporate customers from Microsoft Corp's
Outlook into Gmail. The suit alleges Google had trouble building a
similar tool.

LimitNone said it entered a confidentiality deal with Google to
share trade secrets of its e-mail migration tool with Google engineers,
sales people and key Google Apps customers.

Last December, the firm of less than five employees learned from
Google that it planned to enter the market for LimitNone's migration
product itself because the business opportunity promised to be huge,
according to court papers.

Lead plaintiff's attorney David Rammelt said in a phone interview
that LimitNone had been told by Google that 50 million subscribers was
"just too big to come from someone else" and that a simple calculation
of the lost revenue for LimitNone "very quickly gets you up to about
$950 million."

Google introduced a free, competing e-mail migration tool called
"Google Email Uploader" earlier this year, which the lawsuit alleges is
"almost identical" to gMove and that "both operate under a similar
conceptual design."

Following Google's decision to compete with it, Palatine,
Illinois-based LimitNone shifted its business to focus on the emerging
market for business software designed to run on the Apple Inc iPhone.

Rammelt was lead attorney in the American Blinds trademark case
against Google's AdWords online advertising system. The plaintiffs in
that case dropped their suit last September, a few months before going
to trial, citing mounting legal costs. Google declared victory in the
four-year trademark battle.